by Guillermo Cotto-Thorner
Nueva York is the city of commotion and mobility. The noise can be so intense that it numbs the senses, and the person who lives in this environment for a long time loses the notion of silence. The torrent of pedestrians and vehicles is endless—streetcars, buses, automobiles, horse-carts, trucks, trains, bicycles, motorcycles, air-planes and wheelbarrows; fire engines, with their high-powered motors and ear-splitting sirens; the shouts of children and adults; the buzz of conversation of the human swarm on the sidewalks; guffaws, curses, cries; the explosion of a backfiring engine; wheels that bump over the rails and rend all tranquility; the spinning of propellers boring thunderously through space; noise, noise, NOISE: New York.
Mankind has won a victory over the horizontal. New York aims overhead, is in perpetual pugilism with space. From the hard rock of Manhattan, man has shot up to conquer the clouds. Strapping buildings, as tall and long as the jíbaro’s hope, dotted symmetrically with windows and bordered with a little aesthetic detail to silence the critics—austere, linear, devastating. In summer, they give the impression of macabre furnaces where eyelashes burn, bodies melt down and all feeling contorts and loses its sense.
Excerpt from "Manhattan Tropics" by Guillermo Cotto-Thorner is being reprinted with permission from the publisher (©Arte Público Press - University of Houston)
Question
Use the passage to answer the question.
Which excerpt from the passage uses language that helps to build a pessimistic tone?
(1 point)
Responses
"Strapping buildings, as tall and long as the jíbaro’s hope, dotted symmetrically with windows and bordered with a little aesthetic detail to silence the critics."
"Strapping buildings, as tall and long as the jíbaro’s hope, dotted symmetrically with windows and bordered with a little aesthetic detail to silence the critics."
"Mankind has won a victory over the horizontal. New York aims overhead, is in perpetual pugilism with space."
"Mankind has won a victory over the horizontal. New York aims overhead, is in perpetual pugilism with space."
"The torrent of pedestrians and vehicles is endless—streetcars, buses, automobiles, horse-carts, trucks, trains, bicycles, motorcycles, airplanes and wheelbarrows."
"The torrent of pedestrians and vehicles is endless—streetcars, buses, automobiles, horse-carts, trucks, trains, bicycles, motorcycles, airplanes and wheelbarrows."
"The noise can be so intense that it numbs the senses, and the person who lives in this environment for a long time loses the notion of silence."
1 answer
The excerpt from the passage that uses language that helps to build a pessimistic tone is:
"The noise can be so intense that it numbs the senses, and the person who lives in this environment for a long time loses the notion of silence."
This sentence conveys a sense of overwhelming chaos and a loss of tranquility, which contributes to a pessimistic view of life in New York.
